Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But people might be more happy walking, biking, etc. Or they might drag their tractors into the highways and block off all access to the city in protest. I feel like I had this same conversation against a presenter at CCC recently. Do people really not see the backlash brewing against the left for proposing these ideas onto others?
If we don't do good things out of fear of backlash from regressives, we have already lost.
At least in the US it is done one of three ways
1: For corrupt stealing of funds, stuff a contract into some other bill that marginally helps people. Example: The "Inflation Reduction Act" is 270+ pages. Its filled with giveaways here and there that wont be noticed by people directly, it will just eat away at them longterm in the form of higher taxes and inflation. They could totally enact small rule changes here and there to curb emissions in all of these bills and if you do it over an extended time period people wont notice the small changes.
2: Have the private sector solve it so that way people can "feel" like they can refuse. But what happens is that the market takes over and eventually this option is what people are stuck with since it becomes the cheapest. We are seeing this with EVs and hopefully we will reach a point where EVs get cheap enough and chargers become ubiquitous enough that the flywheel effect that keeps gas prices low will slow down and it enters a death spiral.
3: Have a national tragedy and use the opportunity to ram through a piece of legislation to affect massive change by forcing the opposition to have to take an unpopular side. Examples: LBJ pushing the Civil Rights Act after JFK's assassination, Patriot act after 9/11 etc.